floor redux

Today I met with the project manager from the restoration company, the flooring contractor and the project manager from the flooring company to discuss the - uh - piss poor job the installer did putting in my floor. (For a description of each of the following pictures you can hold your mouse over the picture - unless you have Firefox, in which case you're just going to have to figure it out on your own.)


I really hate complaining and it causes me stress to have to go and show people the things they did wrong. In addition I really want them all out of my house so I can clean it and have my house back. I like my house. I've had it for 10 years and basically it's decorated the way I like, it's comfortable and homey.

I have a nice fireplace that would be nice to sit in front of in this chilly weather, I have a deck I enjoy and basically - I like my house. But recently it's been dusty and there have been errant staples, nails and razor blades lying around. Trash in the back yard, trash in the front yard, random holes appearing in the walls and people in and out at all hours.

It's no longer a sanctuary, it's a souce of stress. I might mention here how great Dan's been in letting me stay with him so much over the last 3+ weeks as I think I very well may have lost my mind being here all the time. There is clutter, there is chaos and all my storage is gone. I clean my kitchen at night and dust my shelves and get home from work the next day to another 1mil layer of dust and grime across everything.

Anyway, back to the floor. This is the laminate floor I am talking about here. There's no point in even addressing the carpet situation until later. The first issues with the laminate flooring involve lazy finishing, at least those were the most obvious issues that led to me recognize other issues. It seems that they may have made all the flooring cuts from the wrong side of the laminate? or at least with a saw blade that needed to be changed. The edges were all chipped and there was a big damaged spot on the pantry floor that should have been noticed when they put the next board in - in fact would have been impossible to miss so I'm sure they were hoping I didn't notice. The chipped edges wouldn't be such a major deal I suppose except that a number of them actually stick out beyond the edge of the quarter round. If that wasn't bad enough, there are actually GAPS that stick out from under the quarter round. Somehow they seemed to think that was OK? There are a few thresholds where they pieced them with three pieces of laminate and tried to fix the joints with filler. When you look at the cuts it's clear that they weren't even cut straight to begin with - so they would never line up! Filler isn't for poor installations, filler is for later damage - or maybe tiny mistakes that aren't worth replacing. But when you use filler, shouldn't the filler at least match the floor? I would think so.

Under the counter the kick panel has some kind of black plastic on it. The rest of the kick panels are black, so that's not an issue - the issue is that some of it's peeled back and some of it isn't. It's looks sloppy and like scraps. The trim 'matches' the floor - but when I look at it I see two different colors of trim. The guy from the flooring store tries to tell me that wood varies - and I think yeah, oak does look different from birch. Geesh guys. Use the same wood at least... But the other thing is that I have wood moulding all over my house. The light trim looks stupid on my floor. Get a clue. They should have stained it. And the joints are terrible. Someone needs to give these guys a miter saw or teach them how to use it.

I installed the first flooring with an ex, and granted he was pretty skilled in the woodworking department but he wasn't a flooring professional. The job we did on that floor was absolutely beautiful. There was one spot at the bottom of the stairs with a gap under the size of a pencil eraser. There were no chips, no other gaps, the seams were great and the floor looked great. I would expect a professional could do a job at least as good as I did. Wouldn't you?

So that leads me to another issue that I wouldn't have mentioned if there hadn't been all the other problems... they laid the floor in the opposite direction of the original floor.

I looked up the installation guide for the flooring which states clearly that the flooring should be laid parallell to any light coming into the house and if light is not an issue, parallell to the longest wall in the room. If they had used either of those guidelines the flooring would have been laid in the other direction. And, as I mentioned before, the flooring they were replacing was laid in that direction...why would they take it upon themselves to change that? Unless they just weren't paying attention. And considering the condition of the rest of the floor the 'not paying attention' theory has got my vote.

There's also a soft spot on the edge of the dining room that goes down pretty far when you step there. They seem not to know what that could be.

It occurs to me that after all the complaining I should probably remove any valuables from the house. Sigh. That installer was giving me some dirty looks....

In the backyard were boxes from the installation and a can of stain and a brush. Good thing the dogs didn't get into that.

There is some good news. The project manager from the restoration company is having the entire floor ripped out and they are starting from scratch. And they are laying the floor in the other direction.
The bad news is that means we have to go through all of this again, the tear out and the install. The install should only take about two days even if they do it right. Hopefully they will. I really don't want to continue with this.

My State Farm representative will be made aware of the situation just in case they try to double charge for flooring installation or materials. I can't imagine they would be able to get away with that but you never know. I'm sure they are ticked but heck, I'm paying this same company $1,500 of my own money to replace the carpet in my office and on the stairs. Maybe I should re-think that!
This last picture is in the small closet off my entry. Yes, I know it's a closet but imagine what they are charging insurance. See that tiny piece? It isn't even attached to anything. I can't even imagine what they were thinking? Perhaps that they were installing a floor for a blind person? That's the most rational explaination I have even though it implies a certain amount of laziness or dishonesty.

I'm glad the people that were here today recognize that this is a problem and that a poor job was done. I'm happy they are going to fix it and that there was very little argument about that. I just really wish it had been done right the first time as the whole 'house flood' scenario is bad enough as it is.

Downstairs Demolition

The water damage downstairs had extended as far into the kitchen as the small island on the side of the fridge. All of the flooring had to be ripped out to start the drying process.

The de-humidifiers are about rib cage high and there is currently one in the living room and one in the kitchen.

I've run out of places to move furniture and other items. Everything furniture in the Living Room has been pushed back against the far wall. All of the personal items have been moved into the dining room for their protection. Anything else has also been put into the dining room.

Upstairs I've been forced to get things on the bed or as close to the far wall as possible. Other items have been moved into my office.

Dexter gets locked in the office during the day with the dogs. I am concerned that with all the coming and going that he might get outside.

This is the eating area of my kitchen. The water was coming down from the fixture in here and destroyed the table beneath it. It also seems to have destroyed all of the things sitting on that table.

Martha is continuing to investigate which of her items are damaged beyond repair.

Yesterday they were unable to finish the 'demolition' because there was so much work to do downstairs as far as floor and ceiling removal and pulling up carpet. When they left I had 5 fans and two dehumidifiers. The Dehumidifiers are pretty neat as they have these long clear hoses that are continually draining the water they remove from the air down the drain in the half bath. Here you can see one of the de-humidifiers in the living room and all of the living room furniture up against the far wall. There is a fan on either side of the living room blowing under the carpet. It is my understanding that the carpet pad that I pay extra for has been removed. Note to self: Make sure they replace that carpet pad with a pad as good as the one they took out!When you look at the exposed plywood it's pretty easy to see how wet the wood is. I am really surprised by how quickly it spread and how 'soaked' everything seemed to get. Granted I didn't actually see the standing water and the water pouring out of the ceiling since I wasn't in town - but it sure seems like a lot, especially with what those de-humidifiers are pouring down the sink. Finally here is a view from the far side of the kitchen. You see right through the eat in portion of the kitchen where I gather most of the water came down - all the way to the far wall in the living room. The de-humidifier is sitting in the center of the room.

On the counter you can see the library books that were on the table. Martha is trying to dry those, I don't have much hope. The spine is dissolved on one of them, I'm pretty sure the others will end up with some sticking pages. She is supposed to take them to the library and get the replacement costs in writing so I can submit those to the insurance company. She also had some electronics on the table that no longer work. I told her to get information on what it would cost to replace those as well.

Today they are finishing up downstairs and they should have been tearing out the tile in the bathroom and lifting the carpet in the master and spare room to start the drying. I'm sure the cats are ecstatic.